


like a peach

by captainharkness



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Author Bullshitting Medical Knowledge, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Injuries, because our boys are nothing if not linguists, can be read as purely platonic if thats your deal, everything i know about treating a dislocation i read in other wwe fanfictions okay, excessive use of the word 'fuck', i know nothing about shoulder injuries, or how to treat them, tfw when u kick a dog by accident nd its crying nd all u feel is never ending guilt, thats what this is based on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 13:11:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5586949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainharkness/pseuds/captainharkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean’s a wrestler. Even before he was a wrestler, he was a fighter, a brawler. He can take a punch. Pain is just a part of his day to day life and it has been for years now. That doesn’t mean that having the full weight of Roman Reigns dumped on his bad shoulder doesn’t hurt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like a peach

**Author's Note:**

> So, Will wanted some Ambreigns for Christmas and I was really stuck on what to write. Then, behold! Inspiration. I have no idea if this is what you wanted, or even had in mind, but I hope you like it anyway. A very Merry-slightly-belated-Christmas to the Roman to my Dean.

_ 3, 2, 1… _

It was well practised, almost a routine, the way they lock up. Roman always has the size advantage, but Dean’s learned how to work around that. The first ten seconds of every round are almost always the same, and there’s something strangely endearing about that. 

One of the first lessons that Dean had learned when he started wrestling; you can run a mile a day, lift all the weights you want, do as much fancy resistance training or sports therapy as you like, but the best way to stay ring fit was to wrestle.  They were off for the Christmas period, just a few days longer than the breaks they usually got between shows but it was enough. Unfortunately, they were staying in Florida with Roman’s family over the holidays, which meant that both of them had eaten twice their body weight in the space of two days. Even Dean, who, for an athlete, had an appalling diet - as Roman liked to remind him over his salads and his salt-free flatbreads or whatever the fuck he had in his bag on any particular day - had to lie down after the Christmas day meal.

Dean dropped his weight to the front of him, throwing Roman off balance, and rolled behind his legs. Without a crowd to play for or ring ropes to bounce and jump off, they were fairly limited to mat wrestling; submissions, holds, general rough and tumble which inevitably lead to playing dirty and then just playing.

Dean sprang to his feet just in time to catch a forearm to the chest, timed perfectly by Roman. It knocked him back on his ass, sending him scrambling back to get out of the way of his best friend trying to put him in a leg lock. 

“Cheeky prick,” he muttered, hauling himself to his feet. Roman only grinned, and readied himself to lock up again. 

They gave themselves another silent countdown before they were at it once more. This time, Roman got the advantage, shoving Dean to his knees, before getting him in a headlock. It lasted all of ten seconds before he gave up and tapped, because it wasn’t a real match anyway so Roman had no right to that smug look on his face. 

Back and forth they went for nearly half an hour. It was almost pointless, they’d sparred so often, trained together for so long, fought beside each other for so many years, that they knew each other too well to gain any real benefit. It wasn’t until Roman rolled his eyes with a grin at Dean’s trash talking that he went for a spear.

It was half-hearted and had none of the showmanship or power behind it that the ones he did on Smackdown or Raw had, but Roman Reigns throwing all his bodyweight at you was still a fairly significant event. Before he could even think about bracing for the impact, there was a loud  _ pop _ , and all the air left Dean’s lungs at once, and Roman was scrambling off of him, face going steadily paler by the second. Dean was pretty sure his friend was saying something to him but he didn’t know what it might be; he was too preoccupied trying not bite down on his tongue to pay attention. 

Dean had screwed his shoulder up years ago. One misjudged kick and a DIY-fixed dislocation, back before the production he was working had a first aid room with anything more than some support tape and an ice machine, and it had never been the same. Maybe he should have taken a week off before getting back in the ring with it, but Dean had never listened to the doctor’s orders before, and he certainly didn’t when he nineteen.

That was in the past, but it still came back to haunt him sometimes. Having a shoulder that randomly pops out of it’s socket was actually a fun party trick, but getting it forced out was never anything short of  _ fucking painful. _

“Dean, fuck,” Roman was panting, hands hovering about Dean’s chest like he was afraid he would hurt him even more if he touched him, “I’m so sorry, fuck, what can I do?”

“Just… just help me up, okay?” Dean bit out, “I need to sit up to put it back in.”

There was the sort of pause that Dean had come to realise was usually followed by a lecture, “You can’t just  _ pop it back _ in, Dean, you need a doctor or a medic at least-”

It was easy to forget that Roman didn’t have the same experience on the indie circuit that he did. That Roman had left college and gone straight into FCW. Roman had never had the honour of sleeping in his car on the side of the interstate, cleaning up a friend’s cut with a bottle of cheap whiskey and a cotton ball, pissing in a bottle while trying to drive to make it to the next match. Long before, Dean had held it against him - “ _ It’s not  _ character building _ , Dean, _ ” he’d argue, “ _ It’s damn dangerous _ ,” - but now it just seemed funny. 

Hauling himself up with his grip on his best friend’s arm, Dean grit his teeth and shoved at his shoulder. It wasn’t as bad as he thought, and it slid back into the socket fairly easily. Roman stared at him like he was insane, but kept a hand on his back to try and hold him upright.

“You’re out of your mind,” he said, shaking his head. 

“It’s fine,” Dean shrugged, then regretted it, because it still really fucking hurt, “Just needs some ice and painkillers.”

“You need to get it checked out-  _ shit _ , Dean, be careful,” he stammered, trying to get to his feet to support Dean as he stumbled into standing position, “Please just take it easy, okay?”

It was hard not to be endeared by Roman’s mother-henning, his friend bracing around him like he was in danger of falling over and injuring himself even more, Roman ready to catch him. It was unnecessary, but he knew that if he played his cards right, he could probably get Roman to carry him to the car and the bigger man would barely bat an eyelash.

Looking at the genuine concern on his best friend’s face, it was one of the moments where all the snappy retorts left Dean, because he was reminded, not for the first time, that he actually had someone who cared. He’d gone thirty years roughing it, making do with what he had, and now he had someone who was practically shaking because they hurt his shoulder sparring.

“I’m fine, okay?” Dean assured him, trying to sound less abrupt. 

Roman didn’t look entirely convinced, so Dean kept his arm pressed to his chest, trying to keep his shoulder steady, mostly for his partner’s benefit. 

When Dean offered to get a cab back to the hotel so Roman could finish working out, he recieved a look so dark he actually averted his eyes. He briefly considered offering to drive just to see the look on his face, but decided against it.

Together, they made their way back to car mostly in silence, more people starting to fill into the gym as the after-work crowd arrived, but it wasn’t awkward. It was tense, for sure, but mostly because Dean suspected that Roman was working on an apology speech in his head, and the last thing he wanted was his friend to feel guilty. At least no one bumped into him on the way out, although that might have had more to do with them all giving Roman a meter of space. His resting face usually looked somewhere between ‘irritable’ and ‘genocidal’.

It was a whole twenty three minutes into the journey - Dean counted - before Roman spoke again, having just driven over a pothole, making Dean hiss through his teeth. 

“It’s fine,” he’d muttered. 

“Dean,” Roman said lowly and so genuinely apologetic that he wanted to hit him, “I really am-”

“I swear to God, if the next word out of your mouth is ‘sorry’, I’ll drop ‘nd roll out the car.”

There were a few seconds of silence before a click echoed, and Dean saw the child lock on his door clip into place. He turned to look at Roman, who was staring resolutely at the road ahead, only taking his eyes off of it for half a second to glance at Dean.

“Sorry.”

**_~.~.~.~_ **

The hotel they were staying at was the same kind of copy-and-paste, bland, neutral toned monstrosity that they’d stayed in most nights for the last few years. Two single beds and a dresser, two bargain shop lamps and a messy looking, ‘abstract’ canvas on the far wall, above an ancient TV. Admittedly, they were only there for two nights before they were moving on to the next city, and it wasn’t like Dean was all that bothered about the interior design, but still.

“Make an effort,” he muttered to himself, stood in the equally bland, monotonous en suite.

Roman had insisted that Dean shower first, despite it not making a real difference, the extra ten minutes hardly going to contribute horrifically to the inevitable swelling or bruising. He still accepted with little arguing though, because it meant showering before Roman had the chance to stuff clumps of his hair in the drain.

He was as quick and methodical as he could be, letting the hot water try and ease some of the tension in his abused joints. In the end, he gave up; he needed to ice it more than anything, and maybe have a shot of something, because it was going to be a bitch to sleep on and they needed to leave for Helena, Montana at stupid o’clock in the morning. Roman was waiting outside the door when he left, which struck Dean as slightly odd but not enough that he thought too hard about it.

Toweling his hair off roughly, he slumped down on the bed on the right - Dean always slept on the right - and a bag on the side table caught his eye.

A bag of ice.

“Huh.”

It probably explained why Roman had ducked into the bathroom as quickly as possible, because he knew Dean could only cope with so much care-giving before he started snapping, and really, they reached that point before they left the gym. Still, he pressed the bag to his shoulder, wincing at the cold for a second before groaning in relief.

It took a minute for him to notice what else had been left on the side - a cup.

Dean looked at it suspiciously. It remained, against all of the odds, perfectly still. 

Leaning over, he discovered a thick layer of cream and several marshmallows bouncing around in the top. It smelled… it smelled like fucking hot chocolate.

Roman had room-serviced him a hot chocolate and then hid in the shower.

Part of him wanted to yell at his partner for being so damn worried about him, and the other part of him wanted to drink it because it had been months since he’d had hot chocolate. Probably years since anyone had put cream on it, or marshmallows. He took a tentative sip.

It was really good hot chocolate.

**_~.~.~.~_ **

Dean wasn’t sure how Roman had managed to negotiate an endless supply of ice to brought up to their room in the ten minutes between getting to the hotel and Dean getting out the shower, but he really did manage it. Every two hours, someone had come up to give him a new bag of ice and take the partially melted one away. By 8pm, Dean had started to wonder if Roman had some kind of dodgy underhand connections in catering.

“How much did you bribe them then?” he asked, carefully trying to rotate his shoulder under the new bag he’d just been given. 

Roman didn’t look up from his phone on the other bed, just smirked, “I didn’t need to bribe them.”

Dean gasped in mock-shock, “Roman Reigns, have you been abusing your position as champion to get me access to the best ice?”

Roman grinned, “Pretty much.”

“I am appalled,” Dean said, shaking his head, “You’re no better than me. I’m a horrible influence.”

“Least I could do.”

And there it was.

“Will you quit it?” Dean snapped, throwing the ice on the bed, “I’ve had worse before, you know I have. I can survive a bum shoulder. What the fuck has got you so worked up about this?”

Roman’s jaw tensed, turning his phone off and throwing it aside. He’d always been the quiet one, back when they were still the Shield and cutting promos into a crappy camera every week, talking shit about anyone they wanted to, Roman was never one to speak up. Sure, he’d gotten better, but he still didn’t speak up unless he needed to. Which suited Dean down to the ground, because he could talk shit about just about anything for hours, but when it mattered, he wanted the conversation out and over as quickly as possible.

“I hurt you,” he said simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Dean scoffed, “We hurt people for a living. We  _ get _ hurt for a living.”

“That’s different.”

“Why?”

“Because  _ I _ hurt you,” he grimaced, “Because I made a stupid mistake and you got hurt, really hurt,” Dean opened his mouth to argue but Roman got there first, “And don’t give me that ‘it’s not that bad’ crap, if it was anyone else, that’d be a damn bad injury, okay? And it is for you, too, if you’d stop being so stubborn.”

“You’re serious?” Dean said incredulously, “This is just guilt?”

For a brief moment, Roman looked like he wanted to throw something at him, but instead, he just gritted out, “Yeah.”

“Rome, I’m  _ fine _ !”

“But you might not have been!” 

Roman swung his legs over the side of the bed to face Dean properly, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, glaring at him like he wanted to punch him. If they hadn’t spent the last five hours in borderline awkward silence because Roman had already hurt him, he would have suspected that he’d actually go for it.

Dean shifted so he was sitting upright as well, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I mean, I made a stupid mistake, and I screwed up your shoulder,” Dean didn’t bother correcting him, “but I could have made a stupid mistake, and broken your collarbone. Or your  _ neck _ .”

“And I could walk into the arena tomorrow, end up in a match with fucking Bo Dallas, take a kick the wrong way and not get back up.”

He didn’t know how he sounded and he didn’t know how he felt because the whole thing was ridiculous. They were in the same stupid looking hotel room as ever, watching the same stupid game shows on the TV, and Dean’s stupid shoulder was still playing up, but for some reason, it had all gotten too dangerous as far as Roman was concerned.

When he didn’t get a response, Dean smacked the bed next to him, making Roman flinch, “Hey, c’mon, man, what about this is so fucking confusing for you?”

“I could ask you the same,” Roman spread his hands, shaking his head, “Why is it so hard for you to understand that I don’t wanna ever see you in pain again? Especially not if it’s because of me?”

_ Bloody sentimentalist. _

Leaning forward as far as he could, Dean dropped his voice to something low and soft and not really anything that it usually sounded like, “Roman…” When he glanced up, for all the world looking like a damn kicked puppy, Dean smiled, “you fucking sap.”

Roman flicked two fingers up at him as Dean cackled, rolling backwards onto the bed with a satisfied sigh, “Is this gonna be a problem for us, Rome?”

“No,” he grunted, “Only if you fight me on getting you to see a trainer tomorrow, the second we get to the arena.”

It was a concession he was willing to make, especially given that he wasn’t going to be the one driving the five and a half hours to the capital of Montana in the morning. Some obnoxious jingle rang out of the TV and let them know someone had just won the jackpot on whatever show was playing, and if Dean was one for poetry he might have considered it poetic.

With a laugh under his breath, Dean sat back up against the headboard, pressed the ice back to his shoulder and patted the bed next to him, “C’mon then, if it’s gonna be one of those nights.”

Roman looked at him blankly, “What?”

“If you’re gonna put me through this shitty, angsty arguing,” Dean said, already changing the channel to some awful 80’s alien movie, “then I at least want my make-up cuddling.”

“What?” Roman repeated, even though he had already started to cross the room.

He sat next to Dean, kind of cautiously, like he was expecting something to jump out on him. Dean just shuffled closer, ignoring the slightly bewildered noise his partner made when he rested his head on his shoulder. 

“C’mon babe,” he whined, grabbing Roman’s arm and throwing it around his shoulders, “don’t get frigid on me now.”

The quiet bliss lasted all of ten minutes, the bizarre sci-fi playing on the TV making them both laugh, the throbbing in Dean’s shoulder starting to fade, the ice and painkillers and actual rest doing their jobs. He leaned closer against Roman’s side, and if the bigger man noticed it, he didn’t say anything. 

Dean jumped slightly when Roman pressed his mouth to the crown of his head, and muttered, “This better not be your way of getting out of seeing a medic tomorrow.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Good,” he replied, lips turned into a smile against him, what felt like a kiss pressed to his head, “because if it was, I’d have to dislocate your other shoulder, too. You’d have to go then.”

Dean grinned, and patted Roman’s stomach, “That’s my boy.”

 


End file.
